Echoes of the Void
A Familiar of Zero/Kara no Kyoukai Story
In a society where magic is the proof of nobility, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, has never managed to cast a single spell properly. Scorned by her classmates as “the Zero” for her utter incompetence, the Familiar Summoning Ritual is her last chance to prove herself worthy of a title. But imagine her surprise when she summons someone with a need to prove herself as great as hers.
In the brief time she had been in Halkeginia, Mana Ryougi had experienced many things that anyone used to the contexts and conveniences of 21st Century Earth (in a reasonably developed country) would no doubt consider strange.
Magic being openly used without a care for secrecy, as if the weakening of mystery was not something to worry about.
Dragons and gryffins being used as mounts, something that few members of the phantasmal species would allow in the world she knew.
The existence of a six millennia old magistocracy, with little apparent social change between the founding of the Kingdoms and the modern day.
And most immediately, the fact that the harbor of the port city of La Rochelle was a great tree on a hill, with ships that sailed through the sky nestled in its branches – something that was just as majestic by night as it was by day, given that much magic – or fuel – went into illuminating it at all hours, ensuring that no wayward flier crashed into it by accident.
It gleamed against the ebon sky, its golden light all the more notable due to the absence of the green and ruddy glow of Halkeginia’s twin moons.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Mana murmured, her attention drawn, for a moment, away from her shell-shocked master (who seemed convinced that the Tristainian authorities would soon catch up to her and arrest her for treason), the still-unconscious Mathilda of Saxe Gotha, who was being attended to by the red-haired Kirche, or the wounded, but still capable Tabitha, who was directing the silver dragon towards a dark, angular hull moored to the tree in the distance.
“Like what, exactly?” Kirche inquired, looking over at the demon hunter with a bit of confusion. “A treeport? A ship? The lights of a city gleaming below you?”
For indeed, their flight path was carrying them over the port city, a small town built within a deep and narrow gorge, with a population of barely three hundred permanent residents – mostly support staff for the treeport and the businesses that had sprung up around it to support the nearly ten-times that many travelers who were passing through La Rochelle at any given time.
The gorge was so narrow, in fact, that every building in the city had been carved from the boulders lining it, a feat made possible by the labors of Square ranked earth mages.
Not for the first time, Kirche mused that this rather solid construction, in addition to the narrowness of the single, easily blocked off accessway to the Treeport, made La Rochelle quite a defensible location against ground assault.
‘Or even against bombardment, unlike most cities on the continent…’
“Oh, a treeport,” the Ryougi heiress clarified, her mind having some difficulty grasping the immense size of the tree in front of her, given that she had nothing familiar to compare it against. “My country has many ports, being an island nation, but our ships all travel across the water.”
“And what about a view like the lights of the city below?” the Germanian voiced thoughtfully. “If you have no airships and have never flown on the back of a dragon or the like, then…”
“We do have craft that travel through the sky in my land,” Mana interjected with a sigh. “Though we wouldn’t call airplanes.”
“Air…planes?” Kirche echoed, her brows furrowing together.
“Yes. The word originally just meant a vessel’s wing – a plane that passes through the air.”
“I can see that,” the fire mage noted, though she didn’t find Mana’s answer to be particularly satisfying. “But why would you name a flying vehicle after a wing?”
“Because it is the wings that let them fly,” the demon hunter supplied.
“…not windstones?” Kirche asked, since in Halkeginia, flight – if you weren’t a wind mage – was only made possible through the use of stones that stored wind magic.
“Wind stones?” the Ryougi heiress echoed. The term was quite clearly, unfamiliar.
“Crystallized wind magic,” Kirche explained. “Germania is the source of most of Halkeginia’s wind stones, which is one of the reasons the Empire became so rich and powerful.”
“Huh. So the other realms don’t have nearly as many wind stones?”
“Albion is probably our biggest rival in terms of what they produce, but they keep most what they mine,” the fire mage admitted. “They need it to outfit their navy and merchantmen.”
“Oh?”
“The White Country floats in the air, drifting around the world. It only passes over the Halkeginian continent a few times every month,” Kirche elaborated. “So to actually trade with any of our realms, or to make on them, they need ships. And a lot of them”
“That makes sense, but why is it called ‘The White Country’?”
It couldn’t be for the same reason that it was on Earth after all.
“It’s because water from the rivers flows off the island into the air, and in falling off the edge of the island, becomes a dense fog that covers the bottom part of the island. Because of that, we call it the White Country.”
“That’s really interesting,” Mana noted, tilting her head. “But you were mentioning that the other realms didn’t produce as many wind stones?”
Kirche chuckled, shaking her head.
“Wind stones – and other elemental stones – need to be mined without the help of magic,” the fire mage disclosed freely, thinking perhaps the young demon hunter hadn’t learned of this yet. “It is hard, backbreaking work that only commoners can do.” Her smile grew bitter as she looked away. “The nobility of the Brimirian Kingdoms doesn’t like admitting that there is something they cannot do, so instead of empowering commoners to mine their own, they turn to us, even as they label us barbarians for rewarding those which made our country wealthy and strong with titles of nobility.”
“…aside from Albion, which needs wind stones badly,” the Ryougi heiress realized.
“Exactly,” the fire mage acknowledged, by now not surprised by her conversation partner’s intelligence. “A good place for fugitives to hide from angry authorities as well, provided you can afford passage.” She shrugged then. “Well, under normal circumstances, I’d say Germania would also make a good place, given that my family would no doubt shelter us if we were common criminals, but the situation now is…complicated.”
From what Tabitha had said, the Vallière family had been accused of assassinating the Lord Regent and conspiring to seize the throne, and no doubt the slaughter of the Griffin Knights at the Academy, coupled with their flight soon after, lent these allegations some weight.
Why resist – and then run away – if one wasn’t guilty of something, after all?
In that case, going east – towards Germania or the Vallière holdings on Tristain’s border – was no doubt what any pursuers might expect. Entering the former and seeking sanctuary would no doubt result in the Emperor turning them over to Tristain, given that he was betrothed to Princess Henrietta and thus had an incentive to ensure the Kingdom he would soon absorb into the Germanic Empire did not see him as a conqueror, but a close ally. Going to the latter would bring the wrath of Tristain down on Louise’s family, if its army was not already enroute to suppress rebellion and restore order. Going west, towards Gallia, where none of them were known to have much in the way of family or support (thanks to Tabitha having enrolled in the Academy under a false name), and taking ship to Albion, beyond the reach of any government which could be expected to extradite them back to Tristain, was the better option.
Especially since, in the time it would take for the palace to investigate the disappearance of the Griffin Knights and determine where their killers had fled, they would already be at La Rochelle, as riding on Slyphid turned what would be a two day journey on horseback into one that took only two hours.
Indeed, there was much to recommend their current course…
‘Except for the ongoing civil war in Albion, but then, we can’t have everything, can we?’ she asked herself sardonically.
She expected the demon hunter to ask all sorts of follow-up questions, perhaps related to the political situation or how it was they’d been in a position to intervene in the first place, but Mana Ryougi only had one thing she wanted to know.
“I see,” the young girl noted, her eyes grave. “So we have arranged passage on a ship, then?”
Kirche glanced over at her blue-haired friend, the one who had first brought up fleeing to Albion, wondering if the wind mage’s plan had been influenced by...her superiors, and if this all had been one of their missions.
“…well, Tabitha?”
“Yes” came the quiet girl’s response.
After just a few minutes more, they arrived at their destination, with Tabitha’s dragon familiar touching down soundlessly upon a branch near an immense black hulled vessel, tethered to the tree by a number of ropes.
“Wait here,” the Gallian mage instructed her companions, as she slid off the dragon and made for the warship.
“Tabitha…?” Kirche questioned, eyes narrowed as she looked upon the sleek warship, from the staff of which fluttered a flag with two crossed wands – the heraldry of the Royal Gallian Navy. “Is this about…?”
“Yes,” the blue-haired girl noted, making her way towards the frigate’s lowered gangplank, with the two soldiers on sentry duty bowing as she approached.
“Should we…?” Mana asked, but the fire mage shook her head.
“If Tabitha says to wait, we should wait,” she said with a troubled expression. “And don’t bother asking what this is about. I don't entirely know, and it’s not my place to explain.”
As Tabitha ascended the gangplank of the ship, the two soldiers straightened from their bow.
"Welcome back, Lady Charlotte," one of them greeted enthusiastically.
The other seemed less pleased to see her, and merely grunted: “The commander awaits you."
Tabitha nodded, gesturing with her staff for one of them to lead her onwards, so she could receive instructions for the next part of her mission. Under normal circumstances, this meeting would be occurring at the palace complex at Versailles, but it seemed that with the current going-ons, her superior had wanted to avoid the party of fugitives being linked to Gallia.
The soldier led her to the captain’s quarters, gesturing for her to enter.
Inside, lounging on a stuffed recliner in a fashion most unbecoming of a Knight-Commander – mostly because she was no knight herself – was a seventeen-year-old girl, with shoulder-length hair of a pale blue shade matching the color of her eyes.
This was none other than Princess Isabella of Gallia – the Commander of the Knights of the North Parterre.
“Leave us,” the princess intoned, with the soldier bowing and closing the door, leaving Tabitha – or rather, Charlotte Hélène d'Orléans – alone with her royal cousin. Said cousin regarded the wounded knight critically, taking note of the dried blood staining the torn shoulder of her garment. “Such filthy attire. You think that it is fitting to speak with a princess in such a state?!”
Tabitha, being used to her cousin’s rants, simply looked at her and said nothing – which only infuriated Isabella all the more.
"You are not part of the imperial family anymore, do you understand?” the crown princess asked in a withering tone, biting her lip. “Just because you have a little bit of talent at magic, don’t think you can just do as you please.”
It was agonizing to the princess that Charlotte, who had been stripped of her titles and birthright, nevertheless was more respected by the nobles of Gallia than she, and for what? Having enough talent with magic that she had been made a Chevelier, while Isabella herself – like her father – had little to speak of whatsoever?
For some moments, she simply glared at her cousin, willing the doll-like girl to react, to show anger, to mutter, to do something – to acknowledge the fact that she existed.
But no response came, with Isabella finding herself becoming more and more unnerved with each passing moment. Dealing with this girl was like a working with a magical gargoyle, save that there was something unnatural about seeing a human act like this.
“You are ready for the next part of the operation, then?” she asked, slipping into the more business-like persona she adopted as the Commander of the Knights of the North Parterre. Honestly, she didn’t know why her father had given her command of this…particular squadron of knights when she’d asked for a title, forcing her to work with supremely dangerous individuals who had little respect for her, due to her lack of ability, with her cousin showing the least respect of all.
And why would they?
Of the four great knight-squadrons of Gallia, the Knights of the North Parterre was the one which took care of all the dirty work of the Kingdom, domestic or foreign, carrying out missions in the shadows with no hope of glory and no need for things such as honor. They, unlike the others, would do the jobs none of the others squadrons would deign to touch, whether they involved thievery, espionage, or even…assassination.
Indeed, the girl before her had just completed one such mission, and was due to undertake another.
Picking up a letter from a table by the recliner, she threw it at her cousin.
"The details of your next mission,” Isabella declared. “Complete it quickly, and don’t bother reporting to me when you are finished.”
The Knight of the North Parterre nodded expressionlessly.
No…was that a reaction she saw? The slightest lifting of an eyebrow? A bit of tension in her lips? Or had she just imagined it?
Either way, it was gone when she looked again.
“Even if you wanted to, the Mistral and I will be out on patrol,” Isabella continued, stating the official reason the frigate had been posted to La Rochelle. “Pirates have been attacking our shipping, so I thought something should be done about it.”
This time, although she looked closely, the princess could see no reaction at all from her cousin.
“Dismissed.”
Without so much as a bow, her subordinate departed, leaving Isabella quietly enraged – much as she was every time she interacted with her once royal cousin.
Mathilda of Saxe-Gotha, or Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt, as she had come to be called, wasn’t sure what she had expected to occur after she’d been incapacitated following the destruction of her golem, but waking up in a soft bed, mostly free of pain, certainly wasn’t it. With that incongruity worrying at her thoughts, she opened her eyes a hair, just enough to see what was going on around her, and found herself alone in a fairly spartan cabin.
Well, alone, save for a worried looking Mana Ryougi, asleep in a chair beside her, dressed in the charcoal-gray blouse and skirt combination that she usually wore when out of her kimono, with a knife strapped to her outer thigh.
‘Well, one thing is certain. The Mage Guards didn’t capture us.’
If they had, her young friend would not have been allowed to change her clothing, nor permitted to keep any of her weapons. Nor would they have troubled themselves with healing her of her injuries, not after how many of them she’d killed.
‘Most likely, both of us would have been killed, attempting to escape during capture…’ she mused, as she propped herself up to a sitting position. ‘Failing that, we would have been imprisoned separately from each other in the most secure dungeon available to the Kingdom of Tristain had, instead of being left to our own devices on a stateroom on a ship.’
And that she was on a ship, the earth mage knew for a fact, as she recognized the distinctive sway of a ship in motion.
But if so, then how had she come to be here? There were no ports nearby, save perhaps Tristain’s naval base, and somehow, the woman who had become known as Fouquet doubted that they were on board a military vessel. Or at least, there were no soldiers in her immediate vicinity, or stationed outside the door – she would have been able to sense their armor and weapons if there had been.
‘Did we go to La Rochelle then and take passage…somewhere?’
That was probably the most likely option, but who…
Before the green-haired woman could come to any conclusions, the door opened, admitting a petite blue-haired girl – Tabitha, she thought the name was, from the Academy.
‘A triangle-class wind mage, whose familiar is a dragon.’
“You saved us?” Mathilda asked, though it wasn’t truly a question.
“Yes, Mathilda of Saxe-Gotha,” the blunette responded, with the earth mage wincing as someone else spoke her name.
“You know.”
The other nodded.
“Why did you…?”
“Orders,” came the response, an answer that prompted the fallen noble to raise an eyebrow.
“From?” Fouquet prompted.
“Gallia.”
‘How very Interesting…’ the thief mused. It meant that someone in the Kingdom of Gallia both knew who she was and had a use for her, otherwise, she would not have been saved. It also indicated that the girl was an agent of the Crown – which quite possibly meant that she had been attending the academy under false pretenses, much like herself. And that of course, intervening to protect her life had been worth compromising an available asset in Tristain.
“Where is this ship heading, if I may ask?”
“Albion,” Tabitha replied expressionlessly, a pair of ice blue eyes boring into her as if trying to elicit a response.
“Albion,” Mathilda repeated.
A country she knew well, as it had once been hers, when she’d been a member of the high nobility, with her father serving as the viceroy to the Archduke himself.
“You have a need for me, then?” she asked, glancing over at Mana to make sure the other girl was still asleep.
“Mm.” The Knight of the North Parterre nodded.
“Well, then, name your price,” Fouquet stated bluntly. “What does Gallia want in exchange for rescuing me?”
‘Or…us, really,’ she thought to herself, as she looked over at Mana, thinking that she had a bad habit of picking up strays, and doing rather terrible things to support them.
Tabitha – if that was truly her name – handed over a letter, with Mathilda’s eyebrows rising higher and higher as she scanned the contents. So Gallia was behind…
She shook her head, her lips curving into a grim smile as she contemplated the task she had been assigned.
“The life of a prince in return for mine, then?” she commented. “Very well, chevalier. I find that to be more than fair. His father took everything from me. It’s only fitting I return the favor.”
Originally Posted by Mattias
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